It’s funny how one small comment from management can completely change the way an employee approaches their job.

So what would you do if you were always on time, even early, but then your boss accused you of being late?

Would you brush it off and keep going the extra mile?

Or would you stop giving away your time for free?

In the following story, one employee finds himself in this very dilemma and chooses the latter.

Here’s how he handled it.

Want me at work on time? Of course!

At my previous job, I always arrived about 10-15 minutes early to get settled in, get my computer up and running, log into all my mail and accounts, pull up all my tabs, and whatnot.

It took my computer about 10 minutes or so to boot up and get up to speed.

One morning, I arrived at work about 5 minutes early instead of my usual 10 minutes. I guess I scuttled up the stairs to make sure I was up and running by 8 — that is, to make sure I was at the desk with my computer on by 7:55 at the latest.

Not 10 minutes later, my boss’s boss — not my direct supervisor — comes over and says he saw me jogging through the parking lot. He asks me, in that underhanded-confrontational way when one knows the answer already, if I was late that morning.

Here’s where the big boss messed up.

I explain just as I have in this post. He says, “Oh, okay,” and that’s that.

I look at the clock. It’s like 8:02. I think to myself, “Oh … so that’s what kind of person you are. Got it.”

If you want me to arrive on time, I will.

In the long run, it cost the company a lot more than two minutes.

From then on, I go about my business, still arriving at the usual time, 7:50 or so, but instead of setting up, I just set my stuff down and — oh, what a nice morning outside, I think I might take a little walk around the office park for 10 minutes or so.

Maybe I might go down to the lobby and get a cup of coffee or something. Maybe I might sit at my desk on my phone — after all, it’s not technically business hours yet, right?

THEN, at exactly 8, I’ll turn everything on and let my computer spend the next 10 minutes booting up and get logged in.

I did the math. Two minutes late would’ve “cost” the company 63 cents. I continued to work there for six more months before I got a better (salaried) job elsewhere, doing the same thing every morning.

Ten minutes a day, five times a week, for six months — that’s over $400. Not a lot of money, really, but a lot more than 63 cents.

Wow! Now that’s dedication!

Let’s see how the fine folks over at Reddit feel about what happened.

For this reader, he has the malicious part wrong.

Here’s someone who worked for a company that got in trouble for this very thing.

This person had a similar experience.

This is what the comment above was referring to.

Good for him!

Time is valuable, so he shouldn’t waste it.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.